Welcome to the Walnut Cafe
by Still Life at the Penguin Cafe
Summary: A slice of life snk cafe AU. Barista Mikasa is not best Mikasa but still a good Mikasa.
1. Chapter 1

_"Nigga, this shit is so legit. Imma gonna bring all mah hommies here for breakfast yea."_ Dot Pixis, probly.

Welcome to the Walnut Cafe.

I'm the owner of this establishment, Mikasa Ackerman; your everyday although extremely pretty barista behind the counter. The boy in the penguin suit, the one who's diligent doing his best yet still dealing ungracefully with the small tasks I just gave him, is something like a little brother to me. His name is Eren.

There's also another employee working here, but it's merely an old coot obsessed with polishing dishes, toilets and Eren's dong and tushie. Everyone call him Levi, but I like to call him Stiffie-face.

"Hmm…damn, I forgot to return this dishcloth to the kitchen."

One quick peek to the door in case customers decided to bash in and…! Nope, money will still be avoiding us for quite a while it seems. On my way to the kitchen, I decided to make some noise to childish rebel against the emptiness of the room, stepping rhythmically with my boots on the tables of the floor, almost going along with the great song of the Penguin Café Orchestra that an old CD player connected to a couple of amplifiers hanging in the roof was playing.

I knocked the door of the kitchen 3 times before entering and yelled: "Pants on you two! I'm coming in!"

"Could you PLEASE cut it out? It was just ONE time and we learned our lesson after you gave us those pay-cuts."

"Whatever. What are you doing anyway?"

"Playing UNO. I mean, c'mon Mikasa: What else can we do?"

"Oh, I dunno… Work, maybe? Eren, how many times should I tell you…?"

"….blah blah blah blah take responsibilities more seriously, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera."

"And yet you are here, wasting time..."

"Look Snow White, It's kinda hard to work if we don't have clients to attend, now ain't it?"

"Yeah, what Levi said." I looked to my right and saw two guys dressed in white holding some UNO cards next to the others.

"The hell are you?"

"Gah…! W-we are in charge of the kitchen here! Jean and Marco? Pastry chef and assistant? "

"Have any of you been hiring people at my back?" I asked to Eren and Levi.

"You serious? It was YOU the one who hired them. Don't you remember?" said Stiffie-face.

"No, not really." However, I've got to admit that it's a relief to finally know from where did all those pastry sweets in the dispenser kept coming. Ghosts, even the ones who can cook, are usually bad for the business.

I kept watching those four ranting over nothing for a while. We sure do have fun in here, even in days like this.

"However, if clients don't come here soon…"

Eren's phone rang and silenced both my mumbles and their rant in an instant.

"-Hi? Armin! S'up man? Huh…? No, we are not closed today. Why do you ask?"

5 seconds later, Eren put his phone down for a moment and looked straight (Pffft…!) at me.

"Armin says that the sign on the doors says _*Closed*_… Mikasa?"

I think it was a wise man the one who said: _"Facing your mistakes is a brave thing to do… but man, you better think in running the hell away when your mistake take the shape of a murderous four headed dragon."_

**To be continued…**


	2. Chapter 2

_"Mikasa's coffee is my favorite thing in the whole world."_ Oprah.

_"What is all this nonsense? I don't even know who this Mikasa is!"_ Some rich woman who looks an awful lot like Oprah.

Welcome to the Walnut Café.

Autumn is a good season for this kind of place. Chilly enough to want a warm drink, not too cold to stay at home. The best weather for do's and don't.

And speaking of things I would do in this weather...

Since we were near one of those areas filled with dull, grey, office buildings full of even duller and greyer people, it's normal to see some of those business men and OLs coming here frequently before and after their shifts were over. One could spend his days endlessly watching them come and go without ever feeling the most remote trace of actual care, as they go through life fusing with the normality of our everyday. Maybe that's why, in the middle of all those boring suits and ties with less color than a socialist newspaper, that girl in teal caught my eye.

"…sa."

About my age, with big blue eyes and quite the charming air of confidence around her… I always kept staring at her hair; It always looked like something one usually have a hard time with in the mornings but she still chose to do it in a hurry, five minutes before she leaves. God, how can somebody put out that hairstyle so well?

"…kasa!"

And her way of speak… damn, I wish she talked more. Her voice always gives me the goose bump. Fuck, I even bet that her breath must be so cold that, if she ever talks next to my ear, it will make me breath heavily, like the same way one does while taking the first cold shower of the summer.

DAMN IT, I would slay a hundred gigantic... things, just to have her whispering in my ears all day. Something sexy and cool like "anywhere you want is fine" or "you are such a pain…" or…!

"What do I have to do to get your attention!?" Barely not swallowing my tongue, I looked around and saw a very agitated Eren desperately looking at me.

"What?"

"What!? I just told you! We gotta get out of here NOW." Before I could ask why, whatever-his-name-was-number-1 came out of the kitchen covered in an awful lot of… *snif snif* lemon frost?

"EVERYBODY RUN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE. HERE'S COME DESSERT!"

Eren grabbed my hand and pulled me under the counter while the other employees rushed next to us after Stiffy-face screamed:

"Shit's about to get messy here!"

In less than a second, the whole place ended up covered in what it looked to be lemon pie. The ceiling, the tables, the floor… It was a fucked up Christmas postal dunked in pee.

"Somebody order combo number 7, huh?" FYI, that's just a small lemon pie with a cup of coffee.

"No shit Sherlock." Said Stiffy-face.

"It's the 4th time already. I think we should already give up with that."

"Like hell Eren! I'm gonna find out what's causing that shit every time I make one of those or die trying."

"I think we should better give up Jean."

"Shut it Marco! And get back in the kitchen, we got work to do!"

"Yeah, so we do. C'mon Eren, this mess ain't gonna clean itself."

"Aw, Man…! This is worst than our bedroom!"

"Actually, it kinda look alike…"

While my good-for-nothing employees went back to work, I headed to the girls restroom to clean up myself and guess who was there? Bingo. Looking a bit confused, I decided to do what a good shop owner would do and ask her if she was ok.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine but… What on earth was THAT noise?"

"Your business meeting ending, my café getting a facial and our reasons to spend a couple more minutes in here."

"I'm not sure if I got that but thanks goodness!"

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. I'm just glad that I can call it a day early." Tell me about it. For the record, cleaning is the reason I pay Stiffy-face a salary. "Well, I guess I'll go grab a beer of something."

"Mind if I join you?" I'm betting a shitload here but…

"Sure. Icy Big One or O'Flannigan?" YES!

"Icy Big One. That freckled girl behind the bar owns me money."

"Nice. I'm Annie by the way."

"Mikasa. Nice to meet you."

"Same." She said with a tiny yet holy-shit-so-pretty smile.

I said it early and I'll repeat it: Autumn is the best season for this kind of place.

**To be continued…**


End file.
